Dr. Ben Carson: Border Should be Sealed Within a Year

Fmr. Sen. DeMint: 'Business as Usual' is threatened by Tea Party

Grassley: 'We will work to Protect the Constitution'

Citizens United Protests Interrupt Supreme Court Session

NowThis News
January 23, 2015

Marco Rubio takes steps indicating 2016 run

TODAY
January 23, 2015

This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor:We want to go back into
Des Moines
now, and our political director and chief White House correspondent
Chuck Todd
.
Chuck
, what an interesting race. How many leaders have we had? Roughly seven over the course of polling here. Now the last minute,
Santorum
surge.
Romney
trying to hang on. And look at the percentages the winner will ultimately get.

TODD:Right. Well, and the -- and the unknown question tonight is what will matter more to
Iowa
Republicans, electability or ideology? You answer the question, you'll have a good idea who will win.
Mitt Romney
's been making the case he's the best equipped, the most experienced to beat the president, the electability argument.
Rick Santorum
is asking
Republicans
not to settle but to go with their hearts and conservative beliefs. That's the ideology argument. Well, what was interesting is four years ago here,
Romney
lost to
Mike Huckabee
largely because, look at this, 80 percent who showed up to the polls said values and core beliefs matter to them more and
Huckabee
carried those voters by a mile. When you look at the experience and electability argument, only one in five Iowans showed up for that, and that was good for
Romney
but it wasn't enough to put him over the top. What
Romney's
hoping for tonight is that more casual
Republicans
show up, and if they do, they're thinking about electability first. And that's how he could win.
Brian
: